THANKS(for)GIVING: 9 Mistakes Nonprofits Make Thanking Donors

Are you focused on the gift or the giver?

Thanking donors is the one thing most nonprofits do not spend enough time thinking about. Too often I find that staff spend 95% of their time crafting their fundraising appeal and getting embroiled in project management — design, layout, printing, postage, etc. Finally, the letter (or e-appeal) is ready to launch. The mailing is dropped. The button is punched. And… voila! Gifts start to arrive! But then what?!

After you’ve sent out your appealis too late to start thinking about what your thank you letter or email will say. Or who will sign it. Or whether someone who donates online will also receive an actual letter. Or thank you call. Or who will make the call. Everything must be well thought-out in advance. You must be ready to go, with different templates and strategies for different target audiences, well before you’ve asked for your first donation.

What would Miss Manners have to say about the way you too often focus more on the gift than on the giver? She would not be happy. Not happy at all. So, make a vow to remedy this situation before we kick into prime giving season.

9 Thank You Mistakes to Avoid

1. Delaying

Your thank you should get out the door within 48 hours. Period. No arguments. People will try to tell you they don’t care if they don’t hear from charities for a week… a month… whatever. Don’t believe them. Penelope Burk, author of “Donor-Centered Fundraising” has proved otherwise. If you don’t thank donors promptly, you’re destroying all the rest of your hard work. The most important predictor of likelihood to give is recency. If it takes you over a month to process a donor’s gift, then you’re missing out on their most-likely-to-give-again period. Timely follow up matters. A lot.

2. Misspelling

You absolutely must spell the donor’s name correctly. There is no excuse for getting this wrong. None. It’s just plain sloppy. And it borders on rude. How would your friend feel if you misspelled her name on a thank you card for your birthday gift? Your friend would feel like you didn’t know who they were. Enough said.

3. Failing to personalize the salutation

Personalization matters. Per the most recent Abila Donor Loyalty Study, approximately 71% of donors feel more engaged with a nonprofit when they receive content that’s personalized. It’s so easy to do this these days with CRM and mail merge programs. Not doing it is lazy. Unless you absolutely know you have a constituent that prefers a formal salutation, use the familiar (i.e., first names). Except for judges and elected officials and military personnel, almost everyone else goes by their first name. And if they use a nickname (or have a pesky initial), then you’d better put this into the right field in your database. There’s nothing quite as awkward as “Dear Ms. R. Beatrice” when the donor goes by “Bitty.” Remember: You’re trying to build a personal relationship. Be friendly.

4. Yawn-inducing content

A thank you letter is an opportunity to make your donor feel warm and fuzzy. When you begin your letter with “Thank you on behalf of the board, staff and all those who are helped by your generosity…,” you put your donor to sleep. Generic and/or jargon-filled acknowledgements are just you checking the thank you off your list. They do little for the donor, and less for you. They certainly don’t set your donor up to want to give to you again.

Jimmy will go to sleep tonight with a full tummy, because you cared. (Food program)

You remembered, because Gloria could not.(Alzheimer’s care)

The glass of water she drinks today will not make her sick. (Clean water)

Rather than providing a transactional receipt, offer a transformational donor experience.

5. Neglecting to mention something they asked you to do

If your donor asked for their gift to remain anonymous, the thank you letter should reflect this. If they earmarked the gift for a particular purpose, they want to be reassured that this is how you’ll use the money. If they asked for pledge reminders, they want to know you’ll stay on top of this. And so on. Donors want to know you listen.

6. Forgetting to tell them the specific impact the gift will have

Even bar mitzvah kids know to tell folks that they really needed that fountain pen and they’ll be putting it to work immediately to write thank you notes! The donor wants to know (1) you really needed their gift, and (2) how wisely you will use their investment for the purpose they intended.

7. Overlooking the opportunity to provide something of value

Remember, philanthropy is all about the value-for-value exchange. Good donor stewardship requires a give and take; a back and forth. Sadly, giving isn’t always its own reward. It’s up to you to reward your donor and help them to feel like the hero they are. What gifts can you give? A way they can volunteer… a thank you from a supporter… a means to get involved as an advocate… a list of tips they can use? Give your donor something of value now to continue the circle of giving and getting.

8. Not including the name of a contact person

What if the donor has a question? What if you made a mistake in their letter? What if they want to do more for you? How are they going to reach the right person if you don’t give them a name, phone number and email? Again, this is about building personal relationships. Donors must be able to reach you easily.

9. Sounding like you’re asking for more

You’ll notice I didn’t say simply asking for more. While this is certainly a ‘no-no’ (a thank you should be pure), it’s equally important to avoid the appearance of asking. Take a good look at your thank you letters. Do they sound a lot like a solicitation? Are you still moaning about the need in the community; bragging about all the people you help, and adding that there’s still so much to do? An Abila Donor Engagement Study found that 21% of donors say they were never thanked for their gift. Some weren’t, but my hunch is that a lot were. They just didn’t perceive what you sent them to be a thank you. Too often thank you letters sound exactly like fundraising letters.

Serious about donor retention?

Your Key to Meaningful Donor Thank You’s — they make more of a difference than you may think!

You may want to get my Attitude of Gratitude Donor Guide. It’s filled with everything I’ve learned about donor acknowledgement over the years, all tucked it into one handy no-nonsense guide on the practice of gratitude. 106 full pages, with lots of ready-to-use samples and templates. Plus it includes theCreative Ways to Thank Your DonorsE-Book — with 60+ ideas for you to steal! All Clairification products comes with a 30-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

Hi Claire, I just found your blog as we are entering new grounds. We recently started fundraising online for our local gymnastics center I volunteer at in Brandon, Manitoba. We ended up trying out a few platforms but settled on one that provided the lowest fee structure (Donorhut). I’m wondering if you feel we should thank our donors with personalized messages after they send a donation to use online. Or do you feel that online donations don’t require the personal touch that we usually apply to our local fundraising at the community center / mall? I only ask because this platform has a place where we can put a generic thank you message, however we are fearful that it may come off as “robotic”. We are really new to this and we would really appreciate your advice. I added a link to the platform we are using (if you are familiar with it) and hopefully you will be willing to guide us so we can maintain the support and relationships of our community.

I can’t comment on any particular platform, but will say that the more you can personalize your thank you’s the better. People who give online are still people, and they want to be appreciated as people. Follow Penelope Burk’s mantra and “show donors you know them.” All thank you’s should be (1) Prompt, (2) Personal, and (3) Powerful (demonstrating the impact of the donor’s gift for the purpose for which they intended). Hope that helps! If you need more, please contact me directly. All the best.Claire recently posted…THANKS(for)GIVING: 9 Mistakes Nonprofits Make Thanking Donors

I would add two things:
Abandon the honorific. As a woman constantly being addressed as a “Mr.”, I have to wonder why it makes any difference to the organization what my gender is. Just use my name.
And use MY name. The one name I give you. Not the one in your years-old database under the ex’s name. Not both names on the check if the other one is crossed out.

That’s a great add, and I heartily agree! I advise folks to use informal salutations as a rule UNLESS they know the person prefers otherwise, or is a congressperson or judge or someone who goes by the term “Honorable” before their name. It’s almost 2017, not 1957.

You caught me being out of date Janice. Sigh… The article was published a couple of years ago, and the survey is no longer live. I see it’s probably time for me to do a new one! Thanks for your interest, and for keeping me on my toes. 🙂

Engaging your help was such a huge pivot moment for me and the Board. We would never – not in a million years – have even dreamed of doing a significant challenge at our event without all of the teaching, support, resources and guidance that you brought to us. Sometimes there are these moments in life that you only realize in retrospect were miracles – and that is exactly how I look back at that decision to work with you on our fundraising engine!

Claire Axelrad has been a highly effective fundraiser for over 30 years and her blog is just a wealth of wisdom. What’s particularly notable about Clairification is that although the work is based on decades of past experience, Claire is always looking forward as well. She was the first among her veteran fundraising peers to embrace online and social fundraising and is now one of their most sensible and insightful proponents. She’s a great resource!

You have been absolutely terrific to work with. Your roadmap and assessment of where we are and where we can go has been so instrumental in having the board stop and think about our future. Your audit is allowing us to move forward in tangible ways to improve our work so that we may help more clients in need of our services. I will count you among my many blessings throughout the year.

I’m subscribed to a million fundraising blogs and the one I consistently open and read most of, is yours. The content is always carefully curated and helpful, not just sales pitch after sales pitch for your own stuff. You stand out, in a good way.

You are one of the few fundraising experts that I read faithfully, and we have no shortage of those who publish regularly. But your material is always thoughtful and realistic. Thank you for your candor and good advice.

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You remind me about what is most important and why I love this profession. I just discovered you and your blog about three weeks ago and I wanted to write today to say thank you for sharing your wisdom and expertise. I find your posts, new and old, so spot on. You nail it.

Everybody involved in philanthropy should read these articles slowly and with a very opened mind and a willingness to take from them the necessary components to change the manner and techniques we presently use in order to embrace what philanthropy is all about “Love”. I have no doubt it would be transformational.

I came across your website and I hit the goldmine! I was asked to join a board and found I need to understand how to build a donor base from the ground up. I searched, only to find expensive consultants or free info that didn’t offer any helpful information. Thank you for sharing so much valuable information!!

Wow! Inspiration out the wazoo! Many thanks — I keep up with trends and lots of blog-posts to stay on top of my game. This goes way beyond technique and reaches deep inside to remind me why I’ve done this work for 40 years!

Thank you for your brilliant blog. I have been a follower for many years and learnt so much from you. Ultimately, it translates into many more families getting the support they deserve. You help me raise more money for my UK charity. Please never stop bringing the best out of me! You’re special.

Exactly what our profession can use – clarification –- the title of your blog. You help us keep faith with the past while making sense of the present and future. You have a balanced and respectful understanding of what this is all about. Thanks.

I’d recommend you sign up. I signed up for about a dozen blogging fundraiser consultants, but have since canceled most. She’s one of two left standing. I like how she organizes her thoughts about fundraising, and her conversation planning techniques are very familiar to me from my work as a prosecutor. I believe that she was a practicing attorney and who changed careers like I have, and my best guess is that she was a litigator as well. This is a very good article and there are several other blogs (her own) that she links to within it, so even though this is a small article you could spend some time here.

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